


Same As Before

by ix_tab



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 08:45:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3128378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ix_tab/pseuds/ix_tab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sera notices a disturbing similarity, and wants to know straight away. Cole obliges, because that's what he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Same As Before

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this at 5am on my iphone, half sitting up in bed, and its my very first attempt at anything dragon age ever. Despite all that, I like it. A little reflection on Sera and Cole and how they could relate better to each other.

'Oi weirdo, 'Sera starts the conversation in her usual manner. She screams for attention and then won't let you wander from her. Cole finds that fascinating. How strange to demand to be remembered!

But Sera does not seek him out usually, or indeed, ever. When they travel with the Inquisitor, she won’t let him walk at her pace, shouts if he brushes against one of the tangled, twisted knots of hurt inside her mind.

He smiles, thinking of Josephine’s gentle welcoming grin. He’s been practising it, in the cool corners of the tavern, looking at the warped way the silver plate he borrowed from the Winter Palace reflected his face back to him.

'Ew, what's wrong with your face?' Sera apparently feels his smile needs work, but she does not shirk from him.

She wishes to talk. Cole likes to listen.

'So, when you appeared right, in your horrid prison with all them sad wizards and tin can men,' she's watching Cole, maybe trying to get a rise out of him as she speaks, but Cole waits for her to finish. He’s been learning about manners from Varric, who always says ‘don’t follow my example, kid.’

'It was a horrid prison,' Cole confirms, when she pauses. He feels the chill down his spine that always seems to pop up when he thinks about it.

'Cold cobbled stones as pillows, bones aching, there's damp on the wall and I don't have the energy to cry as I try to suck moisture from it, lips too shrivelled to bleed,' Cole stops, takes a breath, feels the sun on his face. 

He isn’t there. No one is there. It is gone now.

'Yeah, sounds like a laugh. Anyway, heard you talking to the herald bout it…heard you say you killed people cos you didn't know how else to save em,' Sera’s lost her sing song voice, this is now quiet, sad but far away. The sound that means a person's eyes are open but all they see is a darkness coiled up in their heart. 

Cole realises that this is an important conversation, and he sits up straight. The Iron Bull always says ‘slouchers are banned under the qun,’ and pokes a hard finger between Krem’s shoulder blades, and Krem makes a funny sound like a duck who eats bread too fast.

Cole isn't sure what exactly is so bad about slouching but other people always stand to attention during important moments, and he likes to experiment. He likes to borrow and change his mannerisms, trying to find what his body created for itself, and what he learned from the people around him. Being a person is hard work, and he's trying his best to figure it out from the other side.

'Yes I did. I killed them because they suffered and they would suffer worse. I thought I had do. But then my friend taught me that help didn't have to mean an end,'

Sera’s eyes narrow a bit but she’s not looking at Cole. she’s looking deep inside somewhere, into one of her old hurts, that she keeps locked down tighter then treasure chests.

'And you you told them that it made you like a demon?' she asks but not really asking. She knows the answer but hearing Cole say it is important to her. Words given voice is the oldest magic and it doesn't require a staff or a spell. 

'Yes! and I told the Herald that if it ever happens again, someone has to kill me, destroy me. I don't want to go back to death being the only way,' Cole says earnestly, and he is struck by the feeling that she knows he’s telling truth and she wishes he wasn’t.

Cole doesn’t understand. Sera doesn't lie, tells half truths, and confuses other people for fun, and sometimes she doesn't know how to express herself and explodes, hissing and scratching like the feral cat Cole is currently feeding foodscraps behind the tavern. But Sera has never wanted other people to lie to her either. A thousand sharp, nasty words before one flowery kind thing that isn't real.

'Hah! demons. funny thing is though, I done it before. I've killed people because otherwise they were looking at years of never ending shit. Some of em begged me to, and some cried and asked me not to,’ she says, and she’s almost too serious voiced for Cole to connect her with her usual self.

He watches her from under the brim of his hat, waiting patiently. She will either tell him or not, but he’ll listen to whatever she wants to say. Being a place to lay down burdens, to confess is also compassion, an action without acting.

'And that, like, that makes me like a demon, dunnit? If I'm out there cutting throats because I can't see a better option…what's the difference?' She snarls a little, clenching and unclenching her fists, digging her fingers into the dirt beneath them. A laugh, but not a happy one, gurgles out of her throat.

'I wasn't even 5 years old before I learned that not all demons glowed and breath fire and shit, sometimes they say "it's for the best", ' Sera says, and she's trying to retreat from her own thoughts, but its out there now and she can't.

Cole breathes in for a moment, marvelling at the strange beauty that is human lungs, and then exhales, loudly. Sighs and groans help emotional wellbeing, or so he assumes from spending time with Cassandra.

'We outlive the good and the kind and selfless, and wonder why. The inquisitor told me this. And they said “we survive because we have learnt to and we survive to make amends and learn,” ' Cole pauses and Sera watches him, her mouth pressed tightly together. 

Cole can feel how easy it would be to help her, if she’d ever allow it.

'You aren't a demon, Sera. I'm not a demon either. The Inquisitor wouldn't let us near the mages if we were,' he can’t say it’s the best form of comfort he’s ever offered, but it works for Sera. More than this, and she'd lash out at him, because the best defence is a good offence, and she is always ready to pounce.

In two minutes time she’s breathing normally again and dashes off, probably to make flour paste glue and put it in Cullen's small clothes for the second time this week. 

And she’s let him come closer then ever to crawling around in her head and heart without condemning him to hell, so he’s pretty sure that’s one small improvement for them, for her.

Maybe she will stop thinking about herself as a killer, ponders Cole as he wanders into the Skyhold courtyard, fixated on the clashes of steel in the training field.

No one notices a pale skinny man with a large hat watching the fights.


End file.
